What is your current relationship with your CEO? Do you feel like a fish out of water, or are you swimming in the same direction?
If you responded "fish," you are not alone. When it comes to conversations with the CEO, marketing leaders often speak Greek.
Persuasion and effective communication are skills that CEOs can often take for granted when they hire a marketing leader. In the past, I was guilty of making the same assumption. Aren't CMOs natural-born champions of language, and experts of enticement? Not necessarily.
When we ignore the core elements that refine our persuasion abilities, we miss out on the opportunity to evolve into the Super CMO role. Based on my ongoing discussions with marketing leaders in my peer groups, I have discovered three qualities that define Super CMOs. They include:
- Customer Focus -- this reflects a solid understanding of buyer behavior, positioning, marketing automation, CRM, and analytics to align campaigns with buyer behaviors.
Persuasion -- the ability to communicate effectively with customers, Board, and teams using appropriate analytical and reporting tools to help you get what you want and appease their self-interest. Agility -- the ability to adapt to new competitors, changes in customer behaviors and priorities, nascent technology trends, shifts in strategy, employee attrition, and personal setbacks.Absence of mastery in any of these areas leads to irrelevance (1), ineffectiveness (2), or inflexibility (3).
I have been searching for the causes of these dysfunctional trends. That's why I recently met with Joe Payne, former CEO of Eloqua (now owned by Oracle). After years with Verisign, MicroStrategy, and Coca-Cola, Joe became the CEO of Eloqua in 2007. Eloqua became a rising star in automating demand generation. Eloqua went public in August 2012. Six months later, Oracle acquired Eloqua.
While Joe may be remembered for this blockbuster success at Eloqua, I applaud him for his unique career history. He has led organizations in both a CMO and CEO capacity. As a result, Joe has a natural affinity and compassion for the CMO role. In Joe's words, "The CMO role is the least respected in most companies. This perpetuates the 'CEOs are from Mars; CMOs are from Venus' mentality."
Several bad behaviors create even more tension between the CEO and marketing leaders:
- Data is the new black. Payne commented that "what's different today from 10 years ago is that businesses used to run on hunches of smart people. Today, you can do the same thing, but you can test your assumptions. Every aspect of the business today collects more data than ever before. The data to support a direction are always available." As a marketing leader, how often do you seek evidence, benchmarks, and industry data to support your position, versus just your gut and experience?
Marketing leaders revel in their use of unique language. While the CFO and the VP of Sales report on pipeline, revenue, backlog, and return on investment, Marketing uses different language, such as campaigns, lead scoring, social media, publicity buzz, and events. This causes dissonance with other functional leads in the organization. Marketing ignores the reporting cadence of the rest of the organization. The entire organization follows a reporting cadence that is weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. Think about the staff meetings you attend. The VP of Sales reports how you are tracking against forecast. The CFO reports on how earnings, revenues, renewals, and (possibly) Net Promoter Score compare to previous quarters. The milestones don't change at random intervals.Conversely, the VP of Marketing may report on the latest Twitter campaign results at one meeting, and the number of leads from a big trade show at the next.
If that describes you, then you are swimming against the current within your organization. Our next post will provide strategies to help you secure a seat in the "power circle" without needing a life preserver.
[Image: Flickr user Moyan Brenn]
Copyright 2013, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
This post originally appeared in FastCompany.
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
It's Another Trump-Biden Showdown — And We Need Your Help
The Future Of Democracy Is At Stake
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
Your Loyalty Means The World To Us
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
The 2024 election is heating up, and women's rights, health care, voting rights, and the very future of democracy are all at stake. Donald Trump will face Joe Biden in the most consequential vote of our time. And HuffPost will be there, covering every twist and turn. America's future hangs in the balance. Would you consider contributing to support our journalism and keep it free for all during this critical season?
HuffPost believes news should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for it. We rely on readers like you to help fund our work. Any contribution you can make — even as little as $2 — goes directly toward supporting the impactful journalism that we will continue to produce this year. Thank you for being part of our story.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
It's official: Donald Trump will face Joe Biden this fall in the presidential election. As we face the most consequential presidential election of our time, HuffPost is committed to bringing you up-to-date, accurate news about the 2024 race. While other outlets have retreated behind paywalls, you can trust our news will stay free.
But we can't do it without your help. Reader funding is one of the key ways we support our newsroom. Would you consider making a donation to help fund our news during this critical time? Your contributions are vital to supporting a free press.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our journalism free and accessible to all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you'll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.
Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.